


Ghosts, Monsters; Homo Sapiens

by epochryphal



Category: Kill la Kill
Genre: Body Horror, Character Death, Dehumanization, Established Relationship, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Genderqueer Character, It Pronouns, Life Fiber Hybrid, Needles, Nonbinary Character, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-22 05:59:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2497106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epochryphal/pseuds/epochryphal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It looked like Iori Shiro. It looked <i>exactly</i> like Iori Shiro. Even lying flat on the ground, breathless, Houka could tell. The bangs were precisely right, the glasses were the same, even the ridges from constantly furrowed eyebrows, all aligned to affirm that this was indeed Iori Shiro.</p>
<p>But those bangs led back into a billowing mass of hair instead of a tidy ponytail, with a more gorgonesque volume than any case of bedhead had ever created. And though the hair was the correct shade of sunflower yellow, behind those glasses laid not the familiar warmth of smelted gold, but cold and shining rubies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So in the fourth drama CD, Soroi spirits Shiro away from the Kiryuuin mansion in a helicopter and successfully evades the COVERS. Here, not so much.
> 
> The COVERS!character idea is very Junketsu!Ryuko, and there's a lot of wonderful COVERS!Houka art out in fandom (kudos to venomousOctopus and her fic Heart's on Fire for inducting me). I haven't seen a single COVERS!Shiro, though, and here is my answer to that.
> 
> Tags may evolve as more gets written, though the intention is to remain T-to-maybe-M-for-horror.
> 
> Houka's pronouns are ey/em/eir/eirs/emself, and Shiro's were they/them/their/theirs/themself.

"Houuuuuuuu-ka…… _Houuuuuuuuuuuuu_ -ka………"

This was new. The voice in the nightmares was usually more pleading, the ghost of the days more pained. This current, twilight echo, sounded more…teasing?

"Hoo-uuuu- _KA-aa-_ AAA…………"

With a sigh, the erstwhile Information and Strategy Chair pushed back eir chair and stretched, surveying the spread of papers, tech, and cloth before em. Even with all these notes and materials, and all the informally shared knowledge from before, analyzing the life fibers was slow going. Or rather, coming up with a plan that Nudist Beach and company could actually execute with its current skillset, a plan that stood even a miniscule chance of being successful, was slow going. Especially since analyzing Matoi was currently still off-limits, thanks to the persistence of pointless morals in the face of the apocalypse. Houka glanced at the solitary thimble furnished by the Mankanshoku family, instinctively ran yet another mental projection of uniform production rates, and abruptly stood up. Time for a break.

"HOOOUUUuuuu-kaaaaAA………"

Ey shook eir head to clear it and headed down the hall, pulling out eir phone mostly out of habit. Reminders littered its pixelated background, and one caught eir eye: "chk extl bkup." Right. It'd been more than a week, now, of living inside the Nudist Beach base, and that external backup generator ought to have been checked the moment everyone had arrived.

Of course, not everyone _had_ arrived.

Generator, though. Wouldn't do for the power to cut out. And at this hour, no one should be wandering about outside looking to strike up a painfully awkward conversation full of platitudes and empty reassurances. No time like the present.

Striding with purpose, Houka took the next left to circumvent the cafeteria area and continued past eir room with scarcely a wistful glance. The heavy door to the outside swung open with a whoosh of cold air that left em gritting eir teeth despite the high collar of eir uniform. Ey nodded to the guard on watch and set off in the low light, towards the separate outbuilding that housed the backup generator.

Just as eir hand gripped the cool metal of the doorknob, a distinctive _ahem_ rang out from behind the building, the side bordering the empty landscape. Ey froze.

That voice.

Ghosts didn't cough.

With trepidation like lumps of coal in eir stomach, Houka slowly leaned to peer around the side of the shed.

The orange glow of the dying sunset caught a shape on the ground by the far corner, light glinting off an intimately familiar orange object.

Before it could even consciously register Houka was already whipping out eir phone and striding up, snapping photos and snatching Shiro's mask from the ground. It was only half-surprising when ey felt the breath whoosh from eir lungs, a solid blow—likely a knee—to the ribs synched with a yank to the side behind the building. Ey crumpled to the ground, a pair of pristine white boots already dancing away, crushing phone beneath a hard heel.

"Ho. U. _Ka!!!!_ "

Shit.

"It's your beloved Iorin~!"

*  
**

It looked like Iori Shiro. It looked _exactly_ like Iori Shiro. Even lying flat on the ground, breathless, Houka could tell it was the right height, dimensions, proportions. The bangs were precisely right: the angles of their arches, the flawless twists, asymmetrical lengths, all matched the equations ey'd drawn up and contrasted with the golden ratio, back when ey was first puzzling over attraction and perfection. The glasses were the same, simple half-rimmed ovals seated low on an identical slope of nose. Jawline, cheekbones, forehead, brow depth, even the ridges from constantly furrowed eyebrows, all aligned to affirm that this was indeed Iori Shiro.

But those bangs led back into a billowing mass of hair instead of a tidy ponytail, with a more gorgonesque volume than any case of bedhead had ever created. And though the hair was the correct shade of sunflower yellow, behind those glasses laid not the familiar warmth of smelted gold, but cold and shining rubies.

"Hmmm? Not even a hello?" The impersonator bent down, hair cascading forward to frame pursed, sulking lips. The wide-open eyes and high, concerned brows radiated hurt feelings. "Haven't you missed Iorin?"

Houka jerked eir eyes away from the glittering red stones, breathing and refocusing on a meticulous inventory of the rest of the being's features. No mask; it was bizarre to have an unobstructed view of what looked like Shiro's chin, and more of their neck than their turtlenecks ever revealed. But all bare skin ended there, in a blood-red collar, nestled within another longer collar of ivory white. And there, tucked between dress shirt and suit jacket, was a dark void in the shape of a tie, broken only by the scintillating dance of red threads and a floating, emaciated, grimacing head.

COVERS.

Careful not to make any sudden movements, Houka raised both hands in a show of surrender and cautiously began to stand.

It started clapping.

"There's Iorin's Houka! So good to see you in true form! It's been _much_ too long." The thing's speech patterns were nothing like Shiro's, all informal and airy with a certain lilting quality that sent shivers down one's spine. Coupled with what was definitely the right voice, but pitched higher than the tailor's dignity had ever permitted, the result was eerie and decidedly disorienting.

The creature stepped close, its proximity pressing Houka back against the wall without even touching; it leaned over the base of eir neck and took a deep, long breath before sighing, breath hot against bare skin. "Ahh, and Iorin can finally smell you now…~"

Face schooled into careful neutrality and hands still raised, Houka risked a glance at the once-vital breathmask now lying discarded on the ground. Perhaps the question showed in eir eyes, for the entity beamed up at em.

"Iorin doesn't hurt anymore. Here, feel." A seamlessly gloved hand seized Houka's and dragged it to rub the left temple of Shiro's face. "See how relaxed? No more pain. No more midnight massages and dry sobbing, while you sit by all helpless."

Only with concentrated effort did Houka keep from reflexively brushing a thumb over tender skin. It felt…like Shiro. Save that even through eir gloves, ey could feel the lack of tension, the absence of knotted muscle and throbbing veins. It was as if, somehow, they had found the peace that had evaded them even in sleep. The thought sent a sharp pang through Houka's chest.

"Iorin didn't struggle, you know." The figure released Houka's hand, instead plucking idly at the fabric of its left forearm. "Just, fell. Arms crippled, future aaaaall gone." It poked a finger into the eyehole just below its elbow, twisting it like a corkscrew in a wound, a bored expression on its face. "Couldn't even catch a last glimpse of Soroi. Too busy with vertigo. Puked when we caught each other. Limp little thing." It closed one eye and looked coyly up through the other's lashes. "But you knew _that_."

Houka said nothing, but the monster with Shiro's face must have noticed the way eir muscles stiffened because it positively wriggled with delight.

It flicked a tongue over its glossy lips, eyes flaring ruby-red, and leaned up on tiptoe. "Would you like to taste Iorin's despair?"

Cold darkness rose in Houka's chest. When ey finally spoke, it was with a flat mouth and hardened voice. "No. No, I would not. More, I knew you would ask that, and you must have known what my response would be. Why keep up this charade?"

It giggled viciously, an obscenely bubbly sound, before shoving its hands into impossible pockets and swaying back on one foot; though it seemed precariously balanced, Houka didn't doubt that was a highly conscious trap. "But it's fun, isn't it! Playing like this. How well you can still read Iorin's thoughts—enough to finish sentences?"

Its lips stretched into an ugly slash of a smile, pearly teeth gleaming. "Let's test that. Here:

"You— ought— to—" 

"Run."

*  
**


	2. Chapter 2

Nobody moved.

Shiro's face blinked, brows drawing together in a much too familiar expression of consternation. Houka's hand ached to reach out and smooth the creases from the bridge of their nose— _its_ nose, ey corrected emself, calmly, clinically, detached and observant. Even with its eyes no longer abnormally wide, the thing's irises were still very visibly red, piercing in the wrong way and glinting with danger. Houka kept eir hands in the air, the picture of non-resistance.

It tilted its head to the left. "You're supposed to _do_ it." The pout in its voice raised bile in Houka's stomach, sour at the back of eir throat as the creature twirled a gloved finger in the longer of its bangs. "No fair. You _knew_ that."

"And Iori Shiro would know the difference between my completing their sentence versus issuing a warning."

"Eh?"

Maybe it realized its mistake, features starting to shift from petulance to alarm. Hard to tell in the nanoseconds before needles lanced into its forehead, knocking it back for a full barrage of tranquilizer pins to limbs and torso. It hit the ground hard, grunting, vocal pitch shifting deep enough to be distinctly Shiro. The body twitched, once, triggering another slew of paralytic needles to coat its chest. After another breath, two, it was still.

Houka lowered eir arms and rubbed the burn from eir shoulders, face impassive. Ey didn't bother to look up to the shed's roof. "Took you long enough."

A burly figure with a rooster comb of hair thudded to the ground in front of em, straightening up from a crouch as generic-faced NB operatives swarmed forward to surround the aberrant COVERS. The man cracked his neck right, then left, leveling a sewing machinegun before him without glancing back. "Let me tell you—"

"Two useful pieces of information, yes." Houka's voice was light and biting. "One: we need all the Data," the capital letter was clear on eir tongue, "we can get on this thing. And on my loyalties, to be sure. Two: you hate being—"

"Interrupted," Tsumugu sighed. He inclined his chin toward the tranquilized figure. "So? Any ideas how to kill this monster?"

A well-timed glasses push filled the momentary pause. "Perhaps, but that seems rather wasteful, given our current lack of both intel and resources. And due to its apparent knowledge and composition, I suspect we could readily retrieve enough information to more than justify the risk. It's possible we could even learn how to revive Matoi. Therefore, I can only recommend we take it captive for immediate processing. Rest assured, I will take full responsibility for its..." Eir voice twisted on the final word. "...interrogation."

"Oi." Those broad, bare shoulders revealed nothing. "You know we can't spare anyone to babysit you. Aikuro may back your play, but I've gotta ask. It really OK for you to handle this alone?"

"'OK' has nothing to do with it, wouldn't you say?" Houka stepped forward, surveying the stilled body before em. "It needs doing, and I am the obvious and best choice to do it. I shall extract the maximum amount of information, while minimizing the risk. It's a sound strategy and, frankly, the only logical choice."

The well-muscled man spat to his right. "Fine. Just remember I won't hesitate to put down anyone foolish enough to be worn by clothing. Or seduced by it." With that, he began barking orders at his crew, sending someone to consult Mikisugi, inquiring as to the status of a building separate enough from the main compound to defend against should it be possessed by the enemy.

Houka silently picked up and pocketed eir crushed phone. A foot away lay Shiro's discarded mask, the plastic dull and drab now in the faded light. Ey looked to the setting sun in the west, ignoring the antlike scurrying about of eir fellow humans; the last trace of anything resembling orange had vanished from the sky, and night was well and truly upon them.

*  
**


End file.
